“As you’ve probably guessed, most of my family are Morelium. They’re important people in western Filusia. The Rhymis estate—my father’s house—holds incredible strategic significance. That’s why when they started to fall foul of strange ideas creeping over the border from Trova, no one did anything. The king didn’t want to risk losing the Rhymis family as allies.”
“Strange ideas?” he asks lightly.
“About discipline and sacrifice. About how anyone who didn’t worship Ethira was a blasphemer doomed to the Gloamlands. There were rules—a lot of them—about what we could wear and what we could eat and when. My father liked to make us fast whole days sometimes before we were allowed a drop of water or a crumb to eat. Eventually, we were only allowed to speak at certain times, and even then it was usually to pray. It was all part of the sacrifice we made to show our devotion to the great Ethira.”
I look back down into my drink, remembering how the air in my father’s house grew harder to breathe as our freedoms were stripped away.
“And if you refused?” Corrin asks quietly.
“Anyone who argued was punished, of course,” I say with a bitter smile. “Sometimes I was lucky, and my father let me choose the manner of my punishment. Sometimes…I was less lucky.”
I briefly close my eyes, trying to stave off the image of the cold, dark room I was left in for hours, naked. I can still hear the whistle and crack of my father’s cane on my skin.
Something warm touches my hand, and my eyes fly open. Corrin’s fingers gently entwine with mine, and I don’t fight it.
“So how did you get out?” he asks.
“They weren’t just content with knowing the heathens we were surrounded by would end up in the Gloamlands eventually. They started talking about sending them there. My father wanted to build an army to fight for Ethira here in the mortal realm. I saw my chance. I threw myself into training, telling him it was so I could become a soldier for his precious god. He was impressed by my dedication and provided me with all the training I wanted—giving me the tools I needed to walk away for good.”
I pause, taking another big gulp of my drink. I’ve started this damn confession, so I might as well finish it.
“By the time I came of age, the war in Trova was just starting. It wasn’t long before the king pledged his troops to Palquir. The army marched to Trova. My father was furious, of course, that the fae were going to waragainstthe Ethirans.” I smirk. “And even more furious, I imagine, when he found the note I left explaining I was enlisting. I never spoke to him again.”
“And that’s where you met the prince,” Corrin says, nodding. He’s released my hand now, reaching to take another sip ofhis drink. I tell myself I don’t miss the warmth of his fingers, downing most of my own drink to distract myself.
“The day I joined Filusia’s army, I had no one,” I continue. My family had disowned me. Everyone I knew was Morelium, and they would never speak to me again. And it wasn’t exactly easy to make new friends. My name made me a pariah in the military camp. No one wanted to fight beside a member of the Rhymis clan. Everyone knew they were a bunch of crazy cultists.”
I smile at the memory.
“Then I bumped into the captain, and he made me an offer. He’d heard we Rhymis folk were fierce with a blade. If I could beat him in a fight—weapons only, no magic—then I could be a part of his unit. When I had him on his knees with a knife to his throat, I asked him if he regretted the decision. But he just smiled and told me it was exactly the outcome he’d been hoping for.”
Corrin gives me a look like now he understands something he didn’t before, but he doesn’t interrupt me.
“I’m telling you all this because—well, firstly because I’m a little drunk,” I say, examining my glass. Whatever they put in this Trovian liquor is strong. “But also because running into the Morelium again…it reminded me how easily I could’ve ended up like them. What if the opportunity never came to leave? If the war didn’t happen, I don’t know if I would’ve had the guts to leave. Not with nowhere to go. I could’ve been one of those people attacking us that night, if things had gone differently.”
Corrin shakes his head. “No, you couldn’t have. You’re too brave, Damia, toogood. You wouldn’t have let them break your spirit.”
I laugh. “I’m not suregoodis the word people use when it comes to me. Death on two legs, yes. Mean bitch? Sure. But not good.”
Corrin grins at me. “Maybe not to those with narrower definitions and narrow minds. But I have a broader perspective. You live as I have, and you learn everything is relative.”
He moves in a little closer, and I lean in too, until our shoulders are brushing against each other and our legs are side by side. The spirits have left me warm inside, despite our topic of conversation, and my skin feels unusually alive as my wrist brushes against his palm.
“So come on then,” I say. “Fair’s fair. What wasyourfather like?”
“Never knew him,” Corrin says cheerfully. “My mother was a laundry woman in the slums. I suspect she turned to other work when she couldn’t make ends meet, and I was probably the result of one of those liaisons.”
“So you were born in Hallowbane,” I say.
“Lived there my whole life. I started on the outskirts, in the north, but slowly worked my way into the center. My mother died before I really made it big. It would’ve been nice if she could’ve seen some of the places on Grove Street,” he says wistfully.
It’s such a simple, normal wish, it blindsides me. My throat catches, and I look away.
“That’s where you met Marina?” I ask quietly. I remember her name. Of course I do. I could never forget the day we argued with Corrin about using his employees as spies—the day I learned that someone he loved had already walked that path and died for it. I’d been shocked by the raw pain on his face, like a mask had suddenly dropped, and the suave, charming crook was revealing a truth he never intended to.
Now, with his face just a few inches away, and the warmth of his body beside mine, I want to know more about what’s under that mask. My question doesn’t startle him, but it is enough to make him pause.
“Yes,” he says eventually. “I did meet her there. We were friends—and nothing more than friends for a long time. Of course, she made the first move.” A ghost of a smile lights up his face, but then it falls away. “And then she got herself mixed up with the Hand.”
